At the 6th World Internet Conference, the China Internet Development Report 2019 (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”) compiled by the China Cyberspace Research Institute was officially released. According to the Report, more than 90% of Chinese broadband users use fiber access, ranking first in the world. As of June 2019, China’s fiber access users reached 396 million, accounting for 91% of the total number of Internet broadband access users.

According to the “Report”, China’s continuous improvement of information infrastructure construction has significantly improved network performance. At present, China’s fixed Internet broadband access users continue to migrate at a high rate, and the mobile Internet has developed rapidly. The total number of mobile communication base stations is 7.32 million, of which 4.45 million are 4G base stations. With the issuance of 5G commercial licenses in June this year, China officially entered the 5G commercial first year.

While the information infrastructure is continuously optimized and upgraded, China’s network information technology independent innovation capability has also been continuously enhanced.  In 2018, the scale of China’s cloud computing has reached 96.3 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), and the size of the big data industry reached 540.5 billion yuan, up 39.2% and 15% respectively.

The Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence are constantly integrating with the real economy. The digital economy has become a new engine for economic growth. According to the report, in 2018, China’s digital economy reached 31.3 trillion yuan, accounting for 34.8% of GDP.

The Report also published the comprehensive ranking of China’s Internet Development Index in 2019, with information infrastructure construction, innovation capability, digital economy, and network security as the indicators. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Zhejiang ranked in the top four.

The “Report” believes that the international environment of cyberspace is undergoing profound changes, and international governance of cyberspace has entered an important transition period.  Existing international governance mechanisms have been difficult to adapt to the rapidly changing forms of Internet development and international governance, and the vulnerability and uncertainty of cyberspace have become more apparent. China is also faced with many challenges: the form of international governance is more severe and complex, and the cyberspace powers are heavily colored. Some countries even use information technology and product services as an important means of combating and containing other countries, exacerbating cyberspace confrontation threats and fragmentation.

The “Report” proposes that building a digital world of mutual trust and common governance with other countries is an important mission of China’s deep participation in international governance of cyberspace. Facing the future, we should promote the international cooperation and exchange of cyberspace, and promote the construction of a more fair and reasonable global Internet governance system around the “four principles” of the global Internet governance system reform and the “five-point proposal” of building a community of cyberspace destiny.